How's the EH POG work?

[gutsofgold]

I played around with one yesterday at a local store. The octave down tracks so nicely... how's it do that !? I built the Shocktave and that doesn't track as well, it's like night and day.

[alex frias]

Complex digital manipulation.

If you want the details, somebody more proficient in those matters may be deeper, bit by bit.

One thing alone may explain more than everything: the POG is a polyphonic effect, while the analog frequency divided Rocktave is effective only monophonicaly.

[earthtonesaudio]

The octave down tracks so nicely... how's it do that !?

Lots and lots of digital signal processing.

Complex digital manipulation.

If you want the details, somebody more proficient in those matters may be deeper, bit by bit.

One thing alone may explain more than everything: the POG is a polyphonic effect, while the analog frequency divided Rocktave is effective only monophonicaly.

Yeah, what he said.

[gutsofgold]

I was expecting that but hoping it wasn't the case. 

[DougH]

Yeah it's all DSP. One of the great things about DSP is that you can do this kind of stuff now, all polyphonically.

Here's a nice HOG demo, btw: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIFg6jvXgb4

This guy put some artistry in the video and the demo is musical.

[Mark Hammer]

More and more companies are migrating to digital effects, including companies you thought would always stay faithful to analog, like EHX.  There are a number of reasons why this is increasingly the case:

1) Digital is almost inherently SMT and SMT can be much cheaper to produce.  SMT also has a smaller component footprint which gives you a leg up in terms of sticking a lotta stuff in a modest-sized case.

2) As many here have found, reverse-engineering an analog circuit is not all that difficult to do, even when it is gooped.  reverse-engineering a digital effect is a whole lot trickier.  So, going digital lets you squeeze a longer shelf-life out of whatever R&D you may have invested in.

3) In a field which is increasingly crowded, what sets pedals apart from others is not just sound quality, but also feature-per-dollar.  If you can pack more features into a pedal, then people will want your pedal more, and maybe even rationalize dropping more coin on your pedal because it delivers the power of several for only a little more than the going price of one.  The EHX Holy Stain is an excellent example of that.

4) There are things you can do in the digital domain that are damn near impossible to do in the analog domain, or at least do reliably and well.  So even if cost were no object, and competition didn't matter, designers are attracted to the possibilities.

5) None of the above would matter if the technology itself were not up to the task, and as many are happy to report, it is.

Expect Digitech to eventually eclipse DOD and replace it.  Expect the entire digital stable of EHX to eventually eclipse many of their traditional analog pedals.

[drewl]

I got to repair one last week and was very impressed with the sound and tracking.

One of the things I love about my Digitech ValveFX is it has a similiar arpeggiator to the POG.
It comes in very handy for trying to cop organ or keyboard parts on guitar.
The POG (since it's newer) had less delay and sounded much warmer. More pedals like this and I'll be able to ditch my rack unit and use better sounding pedals live........probably not......but maybe.

[tiges_ tendres]

Yeah it's all DSP. One of the great things about DSP is that you can do this kind of stuff now, all polyphonically.

Here's a nice HOG demo, btw: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIFg6jvXgb4

This guy put some artistry in the video and the demo is musical.

Not bad!

This is still what I would give anyone who was interested in a POG

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV83GWbIDBw

[DougH]

That's amazing! I love it!

[Br4d13y]

is there anything else to get the organ sound like the pog?

[tiges_ tendres]

is there anything else to get the organ sound like the pog?

Using a Leslie helps.  The Neovibe would be a good place to start.  Chorus/Vibrato helps me get an organ like sound anyway

[cheezit]

Some of the synth-type stomp boxes on my Line6 POD xtLive come quite close to the sounds in the video, though not that lush echo!  Again, same deal, once it is in the digital domain many things are possible that are impossible in an analog setup---and vice versa, of course.

[snap]

is there anything else to get the organ sound like the pog?

the HOG:
http://www.ehx.com/products/hog
(in the video at  2:10)

[ConanB]

One thing I want to try soon is an analog "version" of a micro pog. So build an octave up that I like, along with an octave down that I like (probably green ringer and shocktave/blue) then put them in one box that has the up/down/clean mix controls like a micro pog but with the extra controls for each octaves. Wont be exactly like a micro pog of course, and will be fairly fuzzy, but it would be interesting to see how it turns out.

[DougH]

is there anything else to get the organ sound like the pog?

IMO there's not a DIY solution that is going to cost less in headaches, time, etc than you can get a micro-POG for. Don't those go for around $200 or so- that's a steal AFAIC...

[earthtonesaudio]

One thing I want to try soon is an analog "version" of a micro pog. So build an octave up that I like, along with an octave down that I like (probably green ringer and shocktave/blue) then put them in one box that has the up/down/clean mix controls like a micro pog but with the extra controls for each octaves. Wont be exactly like a micro pog of course, and will be fairly fuzzy, but it would be interesting to see how it turns out.

I'm working on this too.  Besides getting all the working effects together, the hardest part is limiting yourself to 3 knobs.  It could easily have 10.

[Mark Hammer]

All of you inspired analog builders out there who want to attempt to make a guitar sound like an organ should stop going down that path.  Remember that the standard flip-flop based analog octave division is monophonic.  All those aspects of the POG that people like so much stem from the fact that it is polyphonic, and you can only do that with either a divided/hex pickup or an intelligent all-digital pitch-tracking device like what is in the POG.  The POG essentially replaces a hex pickup, MIDI brain and synth tone generator.  Certainly without any of the flexibility, but it is about as plug and play as it is possible to get.

[earthtonesaudio]

+1 to what Mark said.  Keep working on the simple octave boxes, but don't expect them to do chords or be particularly clean.

[DougH]

It's fun to think "wouldn't it be cool if..." there was an analog way of doing this. The thing you have to understand is that people have been beating their heads against the wall on this one for decades. And it's the DSP technology that has enabled polyphonic octave generation with a standard pickup. That's really the breakthrough- the fact that you can do it at all without a special pickup.

That said, some day someone may come up with an analog breakthrough in this arena that everyone else has missed. Anything is possible. But you need to understand what you're up against if you're going to try. And you have to start out by clearly understanding the problem to begin with- or you'll be off on the "road to nowhere".

[ConanB]

I wasn't expecting to recreate the POG sound
Just wanted to experiment with an up/down octave fuzz blended together. Totally not expecting it to sound like a POG 

Still trying to find the octave up sound I want in it, gone through about 4 different kinds so far. I need to start finding the down sound and working on the blend.